Wagering on games of chance can be a form of entertainment and recreation, as well as a source of profit for establishments that provide the games (referred to in this specification as the casino). There are different types of games of chance, examples of which include and are not limited to craps, blackjack, roulette, baccarat, poker, keno, bingo, stud poker, video poker, and slot games. These games typically have pay schedules, also known as pay tables, which describe what award can be won based upon the wager size and game outcome. Furthermore, many types of games, like bingo, keno, video poker and slot games, to name a few, offer great latitude in pay schedule details.
The Expected Return To Player, or ERTP, of a game describes the long term expected player payback across all players. Another way of expressing this is the ratio of all expected player awards to all player wagers. For a game to be profitable for the casino, this ratio must average less than 100% over the long run. Actualized Return To Player, or ARTP for any given amount of play can vary from ERTP but the larger the set of games played, the closer the ARTP should be to the ERTP.
Certain games, like craps, bingo, keno and video poker, to name a few, have outcomes based upon known uniformly distributed play mechanism, such as randomly thrown dice or randomly drawn cards or numbered balls (either as physical devices or in computer modeled equivalents). These are referred to as “naked games.” The expected outcome of such naked games can therefore be completely known to the player and based upon the visible pay schedule players can know the ERTP of such games.
Other games, such as slot games and scratcher-style games, do not have such publicly available game outcome methods. Unless the ERTP is actually stated, as is the case with some games offered online, the player cannot deduce the ERTP merely from the game's pay schedule. These are referred to as “cloaked games”.
Every casino game can be considered to have a denomination defined by a minimum bet (“min bet”) and a maximum bet (“max bet”). The denomination is the wagering unit. For a physical device which accepts coins or tokens, the denomination is often the smallest coin or token that the device will accept. Typically, the min bet for these devices is 1 unit of the denomination. For example, video poker and slot machines in U.S. casinos are usually designated to accept bets of specific denominations such as 5¢, 25¢, 50¢ and $1. A $5 slot machine or video poker machine, however, may accept $1 units but requires a minimum bet of $5 and all larger bets must be integer multiples of $5. Therefore the denomination for such a game is $5. Similarly, table based games, like Blackjack, allow $1 chips to be used to place bets and accept a bet of any multiple of $1 which is between the min bet limit (which is usually greater than $1) and the max bet limit.
Most casino games allow the player to play a specific game with a variety of bet sizes. An example is a slot game which can be played for one or two betting units. Another example with greater bet ranges includes table games which allow any whole dollar wager between $5 and $250, inclusively. Award values for winning outcomes are usually based on the award multiplier times the actual wager, except as discussed below. If a player places a $1 wager on a $1 slot game and obtains a winning outcome which pays 5 units, the player wins $5 ($1×5=$5). However, if the player wagers $2 on the winning payline, the player wins $10 ($2×5=$10) and so on. With such games, the per-wager award remains the same.
In addition to standard per-wager awards, some casino games also offer specific “As Is” awards which are typically indivisible and non-multiplicative such that they do not have a per-wager component. Primary examples include physical prizes such as a displayed motorcycle, car, boat or vacation, progressive jackpots which grow in size over time until won or special award amounts which are usually large amounts of money.
Some casino games allow the player to wager on different outcomes of the same game. For example, the game of craps allows for a myriad of different kinds of outcomes that the player can simultaneously wager upon. Likewise, slot games with multiple paylines allow the player to place separate wagers on different paylines.
Games which allow the player to wager on different outcomes often also allow the player to vary the bet size as well. An actual slot game which has these features is known as a multi-coin/multi-line (“MCML”) slot game as exemplified by Williams Gaming's Reel 'Em In five reel slot games. With Reel 'Em In, the player chooses how many paylines (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5) to wager on. The player may also decide how many betting units per payline to wager as defined by the game. In most cases, the game provides for a minimum of one betting unit per payline to a defined maximum betting units per payline. MCML slot games have proven quite successful in casinos. Conventional wisdom in the industry says there are a number of potential reasons for the popularity including:
High Hit Frequency whereby the player often gets some sort of award (though not necessarily larger than the original wager.);
Ability for one game to accommodate a range of player bet sizes. For example, a game with 9 paylines allowing up to 9 bet units per payline has a 1 to 81 bet range; and
Ability to allow players to easily increase their bet size, either by playing more paylines for higher hit frequency or more per payline for higher volatility or both. This may help attract a player for low stakes and then ease the player into wagers larger than the player typically plays.
Casinos typically use a variety of methods to encourage players to wager as much money per play as possible. One way is to offer games with higher ERTP for certain sized denominations and/or minimum bets. For example, a roulette game with only one green space has a higher ERTP than a roulette game with two green spaces. A given casino may have both types of roulette games available, but only makes the higher ERTP one-space roulette game available to players who play at least $100 or more per play. Another example comprises video poker games offered at different denominations such that the pay schedule for the higher denomination machines offer higher per-wager awards for certain outcomes than are available on the lower denomination machines.
Casinos typically also offer cloaked games such that the ERTP is higher based on the size of the bet denomination. For a given type of slot game, such as IGT's Double Diamond, changes in ERTP may only be affected by changing the underlying outcome probabilities and not by changing the visible fixed pay schedule.
Another method casinos use to encourage higher wagers per play is to improve the ERTP and/or the prize opportunities based upon the actual wager size within a specific game at a specific denomination. This is in contrast to a pure multiplier game which pays the same award amount per wager regardless of wager size. An example of a pure multiplier game is Williams Gaming's Reel 'Em In five reel slot machine which pays the same per-wager award for a winning outcome regardless of the number of units bet on the payline which produces the winning outcome.
There are two major varieties of pay schedule design to encourage higher per-play betting: Sweeteners and Buy-A-Pays.
A sweetener means that a given outcome is paid at a higher per-wager award rate at a higher wager level. This normally translates into a relatively higher award and ERTP only for max bet wager play. For example, the most popular video poker games typically have a sweetener for the Royal Flush outcome when the max bet is played. Specifically, a Royal Flush outcome pays 250 times the wager if the player has not played a max bet wager. For example, if the player places a $2 wager in a $1 denominated Jacks or Better video poker game which results in a Royal Flush outcome, he receives $500 (250×$2=$500). However, with a typical video poker game, with a five unit max bet, a Royal Flush outcome pays 4000 units which is 800 times the wager instead of the unsweetened 250 multiplier for non-max wagers. For most Jacks or Better video poker games, this max bet sweetener increases the ERTP by 1.2% relative to the ERTP for non-max bet play.
Similarly, most three reel slot games offer a sweetener for the top award or for the top two awards. Since most legitimate gaming jurisdictions do not allow the game outcome to vary based upon how much a player wagers on a multi-wager game, players realize that the max bet sweetener on a cloaked game, like a slot game, does increase the ERTP even though the player may not be able to directly determine the actual respective non-max bet and max bet ERTPs.
Some casino games offer “As Is” awards, such as a progressive jackpot or a physical prize, as sweeteners for max bet play. This may be in lieu of, or may be in addition to, standard awards. For example, on a slot game the top-most outcome pays a specific per-bet unit award for non-max bet but awards the “As Is” prize for a top-most outcome won on a max bet proposition.
Another type of pay schedule design to encourage higher wagering is a Buy-A-Pay structure. This makes available certain winning outcomes after a threshold wager. For example, the pay schedule for Alliance/Bally Gaming's Blazing 7's slot game pays nothing for obtaining three 7 symbols on the payline unless a wager of at least two units is place. The first wagered unit only provides awards for outcomes having BAR symbols or BLANK symbols. The second wager unit provides awards for outcomes having aligned 7 symbols but does not increase the award size for outcomes having BAR symbols or BLANK symbols.
There are pay schedules which combine both multiplier Sweeteners and Buy-A-Pay. Diamond Game Enterprise's Roman Reels game, for example, offers a sweetener for the top award for three coin max unit bet, and activates some bonus mechanisms not offered for lower bet amounts while not increasing the standard award related to two or three wagered coins.
Unfortunately, the above techniques are less effective for MCML slot games. The dynamics do not mesh well with the advantages of having a wide betting range. For example, because of the large bet range of most MCML games, making an “As Is” prize available for max bet play makes the game too expensive for players who cannot afford to play at the max bet level or do not want to start playing at such a level. Since most players can recognize that there is a higher ERTP for max bet play, they may be reluctant to play this game in their standard non-max bet fashion since they may correctly feel they are getting a bad deal relative to max bet players.
Similarly, we are not aware of any existing multi-bet game which makes an “As Is” prize available for the first bet unit of a multi-bet game. A game which offers an “As Is” prize for a bet threshold less than max bet creates a disincentive for any wager above the threshold since the ERTP for the game would drop beyond the threshold. For example, if a player can win a car on a certain outcome with a single bet unit wager, and would not win a prize of at least two cars or its equivalent for a two bet unit wager, the ERTP for two bet unit play is clearly inferior relative to the ERTP for one bet unit.
Thus, there is the need for a method of offering an “As Is” prize related to a non-max bet while maintaining or increasing ERTP for larger bets.